Hard Rain Falling (Walking in the Rain Book 3) Read Free Page A

five foot two inch guards get a full ride. Volunteering to help with the youngsters got me brownie points with the head coach.” She’d been very open about the fact her parents couldn’t afford to send her to school. Even with both parents working decent paying jobs, they could not afford to pay full tuition, books, and housing for three children.
    What got Lori and Summer added to our itinerary was the cautious invitation extended by Lori after she’d had a little time to feel us out. Amy and I both got the same treatment, and no, not in a sexual sense. She simply asked seemingly innocuous questions and seemed to be weighing our responses. Amy just answered honestly, without hedging, and my answers, while vague, did amount to straight responses. From her questions, like my dealings with Ruth, I sort of figured out where she was headed.
    In the end, Lori revealed that her parents worried about something like this happening and had taken precautions. In short, they were preppers; like the Kellers, but on a smaller scale. So, just before our scheduled departure from the Keller farm, we temporarily added two more to our group. Since Lori knew all of the girls from the cheerleading camp and, more importantly, had obtained the latest contact information from the girls, she was an obvious choice to head out early to help speed the process.
    “Look,” I said, getting us back on point, “when we get to McAlester, I don’t know if… well, things might not be what you expected.”
    We sat with our heads close together and when I paused to let my words soak in to Lori and Summer, I looked to Amy for support. Any other teenaged girl might have looked at the older, more mature Lori and mistook her as a potential rival for my affections. Though my devotion to Amy was unwavering, I could see the threat of conflict; even if only in the abstract. But Amy just winked at me, letting me know she was still on-board.
    “What I mean is; if you need a place to go, we would be glad to have you come with us to my parent’s place in northeast Texas.”
    Lori went still, studying first my face, then Amy’s. She addressed her response to Amy instead of me, which just went to show how smart Lori really was.
    “And you’re okay with this? Seriously okay?”
    “Yeah, Lori. Seriously okay. If Luke feels like his family can accept more of us strays showing up like cats at a milk bucket, who am I to say no?”
    Amy reached out and touched Lori’s face, brushing back her short, spikey hair. The move was friendly, even affectionate, but not sexual as I have mentioned. Then she continued,
    “Lori, Summer, I know both of you have seen some shit, but I’ve been working with Shay and Delilah almost since they came to the Farm. Talking them through the hard nights and holding their hands when the Doc needs to perform another exam. Did you know Doc Cass doesn’t think Delilah will ever be able to have kids of her own?”
    I stared at Amy, wide-eyed. Not about helping the girls or Doc Cass, since I knew she was trying to soak up as much first aid training in as short a time as possible. No, it was the stark, raw pain in her words as she spoke.
    “Delilah didn’t even understand what sex was before being raped that first time. Her idea of intercourse was hugging and kissing with boys, that was all. Now she is so damaged inside from the repeated rapes that she still has trouble walking at times.”
    As Amy spoke, she began to shed tears. Not crying for herself, but mourning the lost innocence of those two girls and all the others like them.
    “Are you sure you can talk about this?” Lori asked; her eyes wide with shock.
    “No, I’m not. But you two will need a safe place to stay, no matter what, and I can’t stand the thought of the same thing happening to you as what those two little girls went through. Luke has been hell on rapists literally from the moment I met him, and all I can say is we need to keep weeding them out of the gene